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	<h2><a href="http://decaffeinated.org/archives/2005/06/08/sith" title="Permalink to “The one and only Sith post”" rel="bookmark">The one and only Sith post</a></h2>	
	<p>Having seen <a href="http://www.starwars.com/episode-iii/">Episode 3</a> twice now, I feel that I am finally in a position to make my statements then put it to bed. It wasn’t a bad movie, it was an explosion-filled action blockbuster; the final piece of a decades-old space opera, that’s all. Throw in some bare breasts and maybe Vin Diesel and you’d have yourself the typical Hollywood fare. The noticeable cut in C3PO’s screen time left me positively refreshed.</p>

<p>That aside, <a href="http://ter.air0day.com/?script=revengeofthesith">the abridged script</a> is a good laugh (credit to Jess for sending it to me). People like to tear the latest Star Wars films to shreds, forgetting that the original trilogy was just as bad in every way. I always thought Lucas had done a great job emulating that badness… down to the godawful clock wipes he still uses between scenes. Rose-colored glasses are a real bitch, and I hate to tell people that the movies they loved so much in their childhood weren’t that good, but hey: I can’t pretend that <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083791/">the Dark Crystal</a> is anything great, but I won’t deny that it’s still a very special film to me.</p>

<p>My only enduring complaint of the whole prequel trilogy has been Ewan McGregor’s accent. I know that American producers think they can hire some dude from the British Isles to fill the role of “British Guy” and it’ll all be peachy, but Alec Guiness’ Kenobi always amused me in ways McGregor hasn’t been able to replicate… he had a particular way of speaking about him. Play this little clip from <cite>A New Hope</cite> in your head:</p>

<dl class="conversation"><dt>Vader</dt><dd>I’ve been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master.</dd><dt>Kenobi</dt><dd>Only a master of evil, Darth.</dd></dl>

<p>I mean <em>come on</em>! Nobody could pull off pronouncing ‘evil’ that way but he. Ah, memories.</p>
	
	<div class="postmetadata"><span class="byline">Posted by <span class="author">Chris Clark</span> on</span> <span class="timestamp">June  8, 2005 at  1:48 PM</span></div><hr /></div>
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	<h2><a href="http://decaffeinated.org/archives/2005/06/07/macintel" title="Permalink to “Macintel”" rel="bookmark">Macintel</a></h2>	
	<p>I never really expected to see the news that Apple is switching to x86 processors. Even with the “credible” rumor mill shit happening around here lately, I just tagged along with the assumption plastered all over the developer lists that Apple had coerced Intel to produce PowerPC chips. Wishful thinking on the dev crowd’s behalf, since they’re positively steaming over their hand-tweaked <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltiVec">AltiVec</a> hoozits and various dependencies on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_endian">big-endianness</a>, but something else occurred to me since the news broke:</p>

<p>Non-geeks don’t give a fuck about what processor architecture is inside their box.</p>

<p><abbr title="Complex Instruction Set Computer">CISC</abbr>, <abbr title="Reduced Instruction Set Computer">RISC</abbr>, <abbr title="International Business Machines">IBM</abbr>, <abbr title="Advanced Micro Devices">AMD</abbr>, Motorola, Intel, whatever… Ma and Pa Burkett don’t know and don’t care, and chances are they were never really filled in on all that <a href="http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/SellAMDProducts/0,,30_177_3532_3839%5E4578,00.html">Megahertz Myth</a> business either. Well, I guess now they don’t have to be. And if Apple can squeeze better performance and more reliable production from a chip company, so be it.</p>

<p>For the longest time, the biggest argument against x86 has been the simple fact that Apple makes its money on hardware, and making <abbr title="Operating System">OS</abbr> X available to all those folks lolling about with their $300 Dells would be suicide. That theory still stands, but since Apple will be employing some nasty lockout tech, <abbr title="Operating System">OS</abbr> X still won’t be running on anything but Apple hardware… at least until it’s hacked. Even so, without considerable driver support for all that back-alley generic hardware bullshit that goes into beige boxes these days, <abbr title="Operating System">OS</abbr> X won’t play too nicely on anything that isn’t a Mac.</p>

<p>I guess now we wait for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect">the Osborne Effect</a> to kick in. (Hint: don’t tell the normal humans)</p>
	
	<div class="postmetadata"><span class="byline">Posted by <span class="author">Chris Clark</span> on</span> <span class="timestamp">June  7, 2005 at  9:18 PM</span></div><hr /></div>
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	<h2><a href="http://decaffeinated.org/archives/2005/06/05/ninagordon" title="Permalink to “Gordon gone wild”" rel="bookmark">Gordon gone wild</a></h2>	
	<p>(<a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2005/06/04/joan_baezesque_cover.html">via BoingBoing</a>) Nina Gordon’s <a href="http://www.ninagordon.com/audio/straightouttacompton.mp3">cover</a> of <cite>Straight Outta Compton</cite> is about as cute as I can possibly imagine an <abbr title="Niggaz With Attitude">NWA</abbr> song becoming, and worth your time, but more impressive is the huge selection of tracks she’s <a href="http://www.ninagordon.com/sightsandsounds.html">set up for download</a> on her site.</p>

<p>We’re talking a lot of full-length tracks —free, legal, and up for the taking— particularly singles from her <a href="http://verucasalt.com/">Veruca Salt</a> days, and ninety-second samples from her latest album. The whole thing makes me want to go out and buy the album right now; artists just aren’t cool like this these days, and they need to be, else they’ll drown in a sea of disaffected malcontents they used to call fans. It’s good to see it happen, and it gives me a few tracks from <cite>American Thighs</cite> to listen to which, for some reason, I never bought. Methinks I will.</p>
	
	<div class="postmetadata"><span class="byline">Posted by <span class="author">Chris Clark</span> on</span> <span class="timestamp">June  5, 2005 at 12:42 PM</span></div><hr /></div>
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	<h2><a href="http://decaffeinated.org/archives/2005/06/05/phones" title="Permalink to “Try before you buy”" rel="bookmark">Try before you buy</a></h2>	
	<p>One of Mark Hurst’s <a href="http://www.goodexperience.com/blog/archives/000165.php">recent posts</a> protests the prevalence of mobile phones that make a lot of noise when you turn them off, noting that the situations in which you’re turning your phone off most commonly (theaters, hospitals, courtrooms, bed) are the ones you  <em>least</em> want to cause a musical fuss. Snip:</p>

<blockquote cite="http://www.goodexperience.com/blog/archives/000165.php"><p>So: please test your new cell phone before you buy it. If we all stop buying idiotic phones, the invisible hand of the market will backslap the lamebrain who invented the “turning off” song.</p></blockquote>

<p>Problem is, at least in this country, you <em>can’t</em> try before you buy. The phone in the store is a dummy that only gives you the vaguest idea of its size and shape, the online demo gives you an incomplete and totally contrived impression of the phone’s interface, and the feature checklist… well, it’s a checklist. Checklists aren’t just a mediocre and deceptive way to market a product, they got no soul, they don’t <a href="http://allmarketersareliars.com/">tell a story</a>, and they never list “Plays annoying jingle on shutdown” as a feature.</p>

<p>I remain completely astounded as to how this practice continues. It benefits the store operators only marginally (they don’t need to sacrifice any phones for display stock, nor keep them charged, nor know anything beyond the magic checklist when the customer asks why it takes seven keystrokes to get to the address book) and it completely robs the customer of an informed decision. The fact that I go to browse the store to see what’s available then <em>leave</em> the store to investigate the phones more thoroughly means no chance of signing me up on the spot. Never. More than one vendor has lost sales from me for this exact reason; I end up going elsewhere to buy the exact same phone after doing my research online. Don’t make me leave the store! Let me play with the real thing, give me access to real product reviews from sites like <a href="http://mobileburn.com/">MobileBurn</a>, don’t bullshit me, don’t bullshit me, don’t bullshit me.</p>

<p>The only people the in-store–dummy practice benefits are the designers of phones with great checklists and lousy interfaces. You wanted <a href="http://thisisbroken.com/">broken</a>, you got it.</p>
	
	<div class="postmetadata"><span class="byline">Posted by <span class="author">Chris Clark</span> on</span> <span class="timestamp">June  5, 2005 at 12:14 PM</span></div><hr /></div>
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	<h2><a href="http://decaffeinated.org/archives/2005/06/03/productnaming" title="Permalink to “Product naming”" rel="bookmark">Product naming</a></h2>	
	<p>Yaron over at Project Aardvark is <a href="http://www.projectaardvark.com/posts/guez/june/02.html">fishing around for product names</a>, which is always a fun venture. I’ve long been divided on this one —right now being sick to death of MultiWord, MidCapitalized, JamTogetherItis— and find most of today’s fashion nomenclature to be what the Spanish call ‘<span xml:lang="es">el terrible</span>’.</p>

<p>For Mac programmers there’s only one real hard-and-fast rule for your product: never ever ever put an ‘i’ at the front of its name. Fod god’s sake, it’s been done to death. I had my parents ask me a few weeks ago, on seeing an advertisement for Telstra’s new <a href="http://www.i-mode.com.au/">i-mode</a>, if this was “an Apple thing”. Nope, sorry, we have parking meters called <a href="http://broken.typepad.com/b/2004/12/parking_meter.html">iPark</a> too, haven’t you noticed?</p>

<p>Don’t drop an ‘X’ at the end, either, please, god, I’m watching you. For Windows programmers the “give it the name of your target <abbr title="Operating System">OS</abbr> release” trend isn’t as prevalent as it once was, which is comforting, but I guess this has been superseded by appending random combinations of letters, go figure.</p>

<p>Look around you into the world of ‘real’ products: <cite>Extra</cite> doesn’t give you any clues that it’s sugar-free, nor that it’s gum. <cite>Cap’n Crunch</cite> isn’t the name of a cereal, it’s the name of a fun character created specifically to hawk cereal. <cite>Nesquik</cite> doesn’t tell you anything about milkshakes. <cite>Vegemite</cite> doesn’t give you a damn clue that it’s some kind of yeast extract… though if you’re familiar with <cite>Promite</cite> or <cite>Marmite</cite> you might be getting the hint.</p>

<p>Names don’t build brands. Brands build names.</p>

<p>If you have a decent product, your product will do well even if it has an unfortunate name. Try to steer clear of offensive names, obviously —<cite>L’il Hitler Chemical Showers</cite> won’t make you any friends— but Project Aardvark could probably keep its amusing codename as a release name and I don’t doubt that the Spolsky Hype Machine® would make it wildly successful.</p>

<p>Trying to secure a ‘meaningful’ or ‘descriptive’ name will get you nowhere. They aren’t just boring, they’re already taken. You don’t have to look too far to see the Phoenix → Firebird → Firefox debacle, and Phoenix was a good name! So unless you have the kind of financial muscle that allowed Apple to take GarageBand and iWork from their previous trademark holders, you just better settle on something different.</p>
	
	<div class="postmetadata"><span class="byline">Posted by <span class="author">Chris Clark</span> on</span> <span class="timestamp">June  3, 2005 at  7:17 AM</span></div><hr /></div>

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